Tag: UFC 115

(“If this isn’t a world where Mitt Romney is president, you can just put me back to sleep thank you very much.”)

As we mentioned in our head to head assessment of this weekend’s UFC Macao main event matchup, Rich Franklin is one tough SOB. So tough, in fact, that he not only managed to fight through a broken arm in his UFC 115 match against Hall of Famer Chuck Liddell, but even made sure to finish Liddell before the bell rung, for the fight could have likely been called in Liddell’s favor had both men made it to their corners.

So with the main card action kicking off at a completely reasonable 9 a.m. EST this Saturday, the UFC has released a couple of Franklin’s (as well as Le’s) fights online to give us all a little refresher course on what our two headliners have been up to. It’s a noble effort, but there’s simply no way in hell I will have recovered from my night of binge drinking, bum fighting, and huffing paint thinner through an old grease rag in time to catch any of the main card matchups live. They’re called priorities.

Anyway, head after the jump to take a stroll down memory lane, even though you probably remember the intricacies of this fight better than ol’ Chucky boy does.

There is mounting evidence to suggest that the city of Vancouver – and indeed the entire province of British Columbia – views MMA and its fans as a roving band of savages who are going to storm the town with torches and two-by-fours, burning every building and raping every damsel before climbing on their snarling horses and moving on to pillage the next village. At least that’s the impression we get from a number of local news reports leading up to June’s UFC 131. First there were reports from the Vancouver Courier that the police chief in The Couv was asking the UFC to foot the bill for extra cops outside the Rogers Arena during the event. The UFC rightly said no to that request last week. Now older reports are beginning to surface that the local government squashed a planned MMA expo last year and even one (from our own M-Russ in his previous incarnation at The Fight Network) alleging that area nightclubs tried to ban Affliction clothing as far back as 2007.

So, what gives? Why so petrified, Vancouver? Did somebody forget to tell them Brock Lesnar’s probably not even going to show up now? We hate to break the news this way, but the UFC has actually been doing shows all over the world for kind of a lot of years now and all of them – as far as we know – are still standing and operational as, you know, cities. From where we’re sitting it seems way more dangerous to say, have your team win the NBA championship than host a UFC event. Oh, wait. Sorry. Forgot. Anyway, more on this story, the UFC’s reaction and the possible roots of Vancouver’s MMA phobia after the jump.

Turns out, after breaking both his right hand and right foot during the first round, Barry was coping with excruciating pain and what he himself describes as “complete, oh-shit-I-don’t-know-what-to-do panic” for the remainder of the bout. Viewed with the benefit of that information, Barry’s performance seems not tentative and awe-struck as I first implied, but actually extremely courageous. So yeah, sorry about that stuff I said earlier, Pat.

(Way to let personal opinion get in the way of making an informed decision, North Vancouver.)

City of North Vancouver city council squashed any possibility that the city will sanction mixed martial arts events any time in the near future as it voted to disband the North Vancouver Athletic Commission Monday night, according to the Northshore Outlook.

“I’ve watched enough of it (Ultimate Fighting Championship) channel surfing to know that I find it repugnant … barbaric,” said Coun. Pam Bookham in the interview with The Outlook.

According to Rich Franklin’s business manager, J.T. Stewart the former UFC middleweight champion will not require surgery for the broken ulna he sustained in his UFC 115 knockout win over Chuck Liddell last month.

Stewart told MMAJunkie that Franklin could be back in the Octagon as soon as December.

"He needed to make sure it healed correctly," Stewart said. "He was feeling good. A few days before (the doctor’s appointment), he was telling some people, ‘I don’t think I’m going to need surgery. It’s feeling pretty good.’"

Heavy.com is reporting that the automatic rematch Dana White promised Mac Danzig after a questionable stoppage in his fight with Matt Wiman at UFC 115 will take place September 15 at UFC Fight Night 22 in Austin, TX.

The controversy arose when Danzig, caught in a guillotine, seemed to be unresponsive to referee Yves Lavigne’s inquiries about whether he was okay or not, prompting Wiman to inform the experienced French-Canadian official that Mac was indeed unconscious.

The problem was, Danzig was still wide awake; he just didn’t want to shift his position as it may have closed the space he had made between Wiman’s forearm and his corotid artery, causing him to fall asleep.

(Chuck demonstrating the moves that got him voted off Dancing With the Stars)

Chuck Liddell was in Toronto and Peterborough, Ontario over the weekend to help out his 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu instructor, Scott Epstein in a pair of training seminars taught by his TUF 11 assistant coach in the two Canadian cities.

Although he declined our request for an interview (not sure why), he did speak with Mike Davies from the Peterborough Examiner about the crossroads he is facing in his career after his knockout loss to Rich Franklin at UFC 115 — his third KO in as many fights."I haven’t talked about it at all. I still don’t plan to for a little bit. I have to talk to Dana and my guys and see what I’m going to do," Liddell said Sunday afternoon. "It’s a lot harder decision when I thought I looked great until I got caught. I was winning the fight and winning the fight pretty good, I thought."

The Vancouver Athletic Commission released the fighters’ salaries, medical suspensions and revenue figures from UFC 115. According to the report, Chuck Liddell was the highest paid fighter on the card that took in a $4.2 million live gate with a "show" pay of $500,000 USD. Not a bad gold watch for his UFC retirement fight.

Fighters salaries totalled $1.85 million, which accounted for 31% of the live gate of the event. 17,669 attended the second Canadian show put on by the UFC in 2010; 1,296 of whom were comped tickets by the promotion and 1,752 watched the action from private suites. According to the release, only 138 tickets went unsold for the show.

Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic was the second highest paid fighter with $150,000 which included a $75,000 win bonus for his rear naked choke submission over Pat Barry. Cro Cop also took home an additional $85,000 for submission of the night, but bonus awards and undisclosed back room bonuses paid out by the UFC are not included in the commission’s salary summary.

12 fighters, including Rich Franklin, Chuck Liddell, Pat Barry, Mirko Filipovic and Rory MacDonald were handed 180 day suspensions while the remainder of the fighters were given from 45-14 days off from training and fighting for lesser injuries or precautionary reasons.

(David Loiseau waits for the merciful hand of the referee against Mario Miranda at UFC 115. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

After taking a rather ugly TKO loss against Mario Miranda during the UFC 115 preliminary card earlier this month, Canadian veteran David Loiseau has been officially released by the UFC. The firing represents the fourth time that Loiseau has parted ways with the UFC since 2003, as well as his fourth-straight defeat in the Octagon — a losing skid that began with his unsuccessful shot at Rich Franklin’s middleweight title at UFC 58.

Following UFC 115, Dana White was openly disappointed with the way Loiseau performed: "David’s been in this sport a long time, and again tonight he got dominated on the ground. That’s his problem…I’m sure (UFC matchmaker) Joe (Silva) is probably going to cut him after this fight, and David will probably have to work his way back up again…He’s been around the game a long time, like I said, but he keeps getting dominated on the ground."